At the heart of the new Mad Donna’s menu is a fondness for heat and spice, no big surprise given that owner Rachel Fontenot originally hails from Louisiana. The new habañero mac and cheese ($12.50) has a liberal dose of the hot peppers throughout and a spicy crunch topping that’s offset nicely by the cream sauce. Then there’s the new Spicy Latina burger ($9.50), which is topped generously with hot queso and fresh jalapeños. The epitome of this new spiciness is the “Hades” hot wings ($6.25 for six, larger orders available). Where the “medium” and “hot” versions are made with a chili paste cut by butter and olive oil, the Hades version delivers that chili flavor without an editor and should satisfy even the most hardcore spiceheads. (If you’re not normally one for a mouth full of hellfire but decide to be adventurous and go the Hades route, count on a solid 20 minutes of burn from just one of these wings – they’re really hot.) While you savor the burn, take the time to enjoy the rich chili flavor that lies below all that heat.

If you’re looking for something a little different than burgers and wings, there’s still plenty to like about the new menu. The new mac and cheese roster is of particular note, sporting Pesto Chicken (pesto, spinach and chicken topped with Parmesan, $14.95), White Truffle (four-cheese bechamel sauce with white truffle oil, herb breadcrumbs and Parmesan, $12.95) and Mardi Gras (Cajun spices, Andouille sausage and mixed peppers, $13.25) offerings. Sweet potato fans will love the delicate sweet potato enchiladas ($10.95) and the light and delicious sweet potato fries ($3.95), which are served with a sweet chili sauce. The current seasonal special, a light pumpkin bread topped with cranberry sauce, will delight those who find themselves ruing the end of late fall every year.

The biggest hit of all, though, may be Mad Donna’s brunch offerings. Every Saturday and Sunday from 10am-3pm, six dollars will get you 2-for-1 Mimosas (orange, black raspberry, peach, pineapple or pomegranate) or a visit to the Made-Your-Own Bloody Mary Bar. If you don’t require a strictly liquid diet before noon, you’re in luck: if the Captain’s French Toast (twice-dipped Provence Tuscan bread crusted with Cap’n Crunch cereal, drizzled with maple syrup, with a side of bacon, $8.95) doesn’t satisfy you, the variety of omelets ($7.95-$9.95), grilled turkey melt (turkey, bacon, Swiss cheese, spinach and artichoke on Provence Tuscan bread, $9.50) or vegan MD Black Bean Burger ($7.95) just might.

You can download the lunch, brunch, and dinner menus as PDFs to explore further. Mad Donna’s is located at 1313 Woodland Street in the heart of East Nashville and is open Tuesday to Thursday 11am-10pm, Friday 11am-11pm, Saturday 10am-11pm and Sunday 10am-10pm.

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The neighborhood’s first supper club is the brainchild of Avon Lyons, a native Nashvillian who has logged a lot of miles pursuing her love of food since graduating from Harpeth Hall and the University of Mississippi. Her travels have taken her to Darina Allen’s Ballymaloe Cookery School on the southern coast of Ireland, where she learned the importance of fresh ingredients, and to the Rose Bakery in Paris, France, where she was given the freedom to create daily menus filled with fresh fruits, vegetables and grains. She inaugurated her return to Music City with a two-year stint in the kitchen at East Nashville’s celebrated Margot, and now she’s bringing the joy of home cooking to our part of town.

Lyons had her first experience with a supper club while living in Paris in 2007. “There was an American couple cooking dinners on the weekends out of their small apartment – nine courses and wine was about 70 Euros, which at the time was close to $110 US,” she says. “My friend and I saved our money for a few weeks and went. We both loved the setting – intimate, casual and relaxed – but we both felt like they tried to do too much. Nine courses from a home kitchen is a lot. I wanted the meal to be more homestyle but it’s hard to be homespun in Paris.”

So what can diners expect when they arrive at the GWSC? For starters, this isn’t a restaurant: though both Lyons and her partner in the kitchen, Olive & Sinclair chocolatier Casey Dailey, have restaurant work experience and training, they are both passionate about home cooking and the meals they will be serving will reflect that. All reservations and payments are handled online so the entire night’s experience is about the food. The menu is set in advance and there are no substitutions, so visitors should be prepared to eat what the cooks are serving. Seating is family-style with two tables seating 10 people each. (“But if someone walked up or called us and we had space, it would be no problem for them to eat,” says Lyons. “And if the tables are full and they don’t mind sitting at the coffee table, we’d do our best to feed them too.”) Guests will also be able to come into the kitchen, ask questions, give suggestions, look into the pots and easily see into the kitchen throughout the meal, since the dining room is only one room away.

You’ll be treated to five courses on Saturdays and four courses on Sundays with a focus on local and seasonal produce and meats, with the occasional addition of more exotic things like Italian salamis, French cheeses or Maldon Sea Salt. What’s being served changes weekly, but with winter coming up Lyons and Dailey say to expect a lot of soups, braises, roasts and stews. They plan to work in some wild game like pheasant, quail, deer, rabbit and dove during the appropriate hunting seasons, though the focus won’t necessarily be on game every week. Throw in some hearty kale and collard greens, salads and simple desserts, and the occasional nice shellfish dish, and it’s safe to say that variety won’t be an issue at the Good Wife Supper Club. With a BYOB policy and wine recommendations from nearby Woodland Wine Merchant, you can round out your meal like a Parisian while keeping things homespun.

“I hope people take away the sensual experience of what it feels like, tastes like and looks like to be well-fed. It can be very moving,” Lyons says. “Our dining room is inviting and relaxing and it will be a fine place for people to unwind. I also hope that the GWSC becomes a resource for curious cooks and food-minded people. We are all for building a strong community of people who care about where their food comes from, and equally as important, want to know how to make delicious meals with whats available.”

The Good Wife Supper Club is located at a historic home here in East Nashville. You can see the menu for upcoming weeks here. Reservations can be made here – price is $40 for Saturdays and $35 for Sundays. And you can follow the GWSC on Facebook.

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Let's raise a glass to our very own neighborhood beer festival!

The man behind the new East Nashville Beer Festival is Matt Leff, an East Nashville resident who says he was inspired to create the new festival by both his love of beer and the challenge of putting together an event. “I enjoy all the components that make something like this a reality,” says Leff. “I truly feel that our community and the greater Nashville community can help create a unique and successful beer festival. I was inspired also put this together when I realized the only large scale beer fest in Nashville was the Music City Brew Festival. I personally feel our city can support more than one.”

Leff’s plans are on a pretty big scale for a first-time festival, which should give all our neighborhood beer aficionados something to look forward to all winter. There will be some 30 breweries represented, including a number of operations that don’t currently distribute here in Nashville. In addition to all the beer, there will also be home brewing sections with demonstrations and brewing education, live music, and food and craft vendors hailing from here in East Nashville as well as the rest of the city. And while you’re feeling good drinking all that excellent beer in one place, you can also feel good knowing that 50 percent of the festival’s proceeds will go to the Ride For Reading charity.

What's better than one local beer festival? TWO local beer festivals!

Right now the festival is still running the gauntlet of city approval so location and dates are subject to change, but the current plans call for it to be held at East Park on April 9, 2011, from 12pm-5pm. General admission tickets will be $35. There will also be $10 tickets available for designated drivers – Leff says he hopes to be able to offer DDs drink tickets that they can later redeem at local bars. Of course, having a beer festival in our own neighborhood means a lot of us will be able to forgo cars altogether, perhaps opting for the luxury of a taxi ride home at the end of the day.

The East Nashville Beer Festival has a number of confirmed and committed sponsors already in place, but there is still room for more. “Being a new festival, we are tailoring agreements for each sponsor, but we do have some basic guidelines and offers,” says Leff. “Basically it’s a tiered system. We understand the need to be flexible in this first year, so we look forward to working with anyone in the community who’s interested in coming on board.” With plans calling for somewhere in the region of 1,000 to 1,500 guests, local businesses really couldn’t ask for better exposure in the community. For more details on sponsorship options, send an email to sponsorship@eastnashvillebeerfest.com.

You can keep up with all the latest details on the upcoming East Nashville Beer Festival through the festival’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

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Your shot at the big time is right around the corner, foodie.

Are you the one all your friends ask to do the cooking when there’s a big neighborhood get-together? Has your spouse stopped cooking altogether because you’re so good in the kitchen? Or, maybe, are you a diva restaurateur who thinks that the world will stop spinning if it doesn’t get a taste of your latest lowbrow-to-highbrow gastro-concoction? If any of these questions apply to you, you’re going to want to clear some room on your calendar - Next Food Network Star is having an open casting call right here in Nashville.

The producers of cable’s #1 food show are coming to Music City for the first time, and they want you to show them what they’ve been missing for the last six seasons. All you need to get a shot at the big time are two recent photos, a copy of your resume and a completed copy of this Next Food Network Star application. (And it might be a good idea to read the eligibility requirements beforehand, too.)

There have already been open casting calls in Atlanta, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Denver, New York and Philadelphia, so there will be plenty of competition for the 10 spots on the show. But if you have strong culinary skills, personality that pops, passion for cooking, food knowledge and lots of energy and enthusiasm, there’s a strong chance you’ll catch the producers’ eye – and take another step forward in putting Nashville on America’s culinary map.

Next Food Network Star Open Casting Call

Monday, September 13, 2010, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Hutton Hotel

1808 West End Avenue

Nashville, TN 37203

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Izzie's Ice

East Nashville has a new way to beat the summer heat. Located at 1000 Riverside Drive, Izzie’s Ice is owned by Eastside sisters Alice Carpenter and Elizabeth Gammans and serves up all-natural Italian Ice made fresh daily.

Izzie’s Ice offers classic Lemon Italian Ice plus a variety of fresh fruit flavors, including orange, strawberry, kiwi, pineapple, watermelon and lime, with no artificial flavors or preservatives. The lineup changes daily, based on the availability of local ingredients. And best of all, the prices are only $3 for an adult cup and $2 for a kid cup.

“When we were growing up in New York, we had this wonderful Italian Ice stand on our street,” says Gammans. “Real Italian ice has such a unique flavor and consistency—it’s like the ultimate taste of summer—and we wanted to create that here in East Nashville.”

Izzie’s is open Tuesday through Saturday, from noon to 6:30 p.m. You can learn more on their Facebook page, by following them on Twitter, or by checking out the Izzie’s Ice website.

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The weather is getting warmer and for many people, that means lighter meals. But sometimes I just need some cheesy, warm comfort food.  Lasagna is something that I loved in my pre-vegan/gluten-free life – the layers, the sauce, the salty cheese – so I came up with a vegan and gluten-free version that I really like. I guess it’s not the most lasagna-y lasagna I’ve ever eaten, and you could certainly use regular lasagna noodles in place of the polenta and vegetables. But I love the way the polenta and veggie layers soak in the sauce and blend with the vegan cheese.

I tried to be as accurate in my measurements as possible here.

Polenta (for layering)

2 cups water or rice/soy milk

1 cup cornmeal

1 zucchini sliced into long, wide strips

1 yellow squash sliced into long, wide strips

About 2.5 cups vegan cheese

Tomato sauce (see recipe below or use one from a jar)

Salt and pepper

Tofu cream cheese (optional)

Crispy cheesy topping (optional, see recipe below)

Polenta spread out to cool

Bring water to a boil in a medium sauce pan. Once the water starts boiling, salt the water and slowly whisk in the cornmeal. Stir constantly to avoid lumps. Turn off the heat but leave the pan on the burner as you keep stirring until the polenta forms a large, thick ball around your whisk/spoon.  Before the polenta cools, spread into an even, ¼ – ½ inch thick layer on a baking sheet. Using waxed paper to press and spread helps to keep the hot polenta from sticking to your hands. Place in fridge to cool for at least one hour, or maybe overnight. When ready to use, cut into strips to mimic lasagna noodles. If you end up with leftover polenta strips, try drizzling them with olive oil, salt and pepper and baking at 400 degrees until golden brown.

Lasagna

Preheat oven to 350. In a 9 x 9 or 9 x 12 deep-sided glass baking dish, place one layer of polenta strips on the bottom, seasoning with salt and pepper. Spoon a layer of sauce over the polenta and sprinkle with a layer of cheese. Alternate polenta layers with the veggie layers, topping with sauce and cheese in each layer. End with a layer of cheese, drizzled with olive oil or the crispy, cheesy topping. Bake at 350 degrees for 20–30 minutes, uncovered. If the topping is getting too brown, cover loosely with foil. For an extra-rich and creamy sauce, mix in a couple of spoonfuls of the tofu cream cheese to your tomato sauce.

This lasagna looks delicious!

Optional Things

Easy Tomato Sauce:

Olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

2 medium carrots, finely shredded

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 32-ounce can of diced or crushed tomatoes (for something different, try fire-roasted)

Salt and pepper

Dried or fresh basil, oregano, thyme

In a medium to large sauce pan, heat up enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Sauté onions and carrots together over medium heat until soft, about 5-7 minutes. Add garlic, salt and pepper, and herbs to the carrot and onion mixture and stir for 1 minute. Add tomatoes and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Crispy Cheesy Topping (sounds weird, but it’s tasty):

Mix ½ cup or so crushed plain potato chips, ½ cup or so crumbled or shredded vegan cheese, and 1 tablespoon olive oil or melted Earth Balance. Spread evenly over lasagna. This mimics the toasted, browned lasagna topping that I personally find delicious.

Cheesy topping

If you try Ginger’s recipe at home, let us know what you think in the comments!

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The Silly Goose

There aren’t any whopping entrees with whopping prices on the Silly Goose menu. Instead there are salads, sandwiches, wraps, and the main draw, couscous. There’s plenty of vegetarian-friendly fare available, with eggplant and portobello dominating many of those offerings. The dishes are made with fresh ingredients from local purveyors like Delvin Farms and Kenny’s Farmhouse Cheese. But best of all, there’s not a single item on the menu that goes for more than ten dollars. At Silly Goose, you can eat fresh and healthy without breaking your wallet.

With just a handful of tables and bar seating for about half a dozen, the dining room area inside Silly Goose is definitely on the small side. We visited yesterday for Dining Out For Life and were unsurprised to find it packed full of people when we arrived. The hostess told us there would be a 20-minute wait and offered to come next door and get us at Ugly Mugs when it was our turn, so we enjoyed a quick beverage there. Before we knew it she was there to retrieve us.

We were seated at the bar, which was lined with fresh roses in a variety of colors and was flooded with natural light. I enjoyed a refreshing basil lemonade while we looked over the menu, while Rachel just had water. Both were served in small Mason jars, a charming touch that made the two of us, both native southerners, feel right at home. Once it was time to order food, Rachel opted for the King Kong – (sesame couscous with curried shrimp, mint, ginger, cashews, coriander and avocado) – while I went for the T-Bird (roast beef, roasted red pepper aioli, blue gouda, arugula, grilled onion on Tuscan bread) with sides of greens and couscous.

The King Kong

Rachel described the King Kong as “a very eclectic mix of flavors – Asian-inspired sesame and ginger, Indian-inspired curry with little dabs of hot sauce, Caribbean-inspired mint and avocado – all pulled together with cashews and large shrimp that were artfully intertwined on the plate. I was surprised that the couscous was cold, especially because the shrimp were steaming hot. But cold couscous is refreshing, particularly when flavored with mint. Unlike some eclectic dishes, the flavors were best when eaten separately – combining the avocado, shrimp, and couscous, which were spaced apart on the plate, didn’t really enhance the flavors. The meal was light, fresh, and healthy – nothing seemed processed or from a can. If it was, they fooled us pretty well.”

The T-Bird

As for the T-Bird, the roast beef was tender, the onions were grilled to perfection, the bread was still warm from the grill, and the blue gouda added a complex tang to the overall flavor that complemented the rest of the package. My only complaint was that I didn’t get much roasted red pepper flavor in the aioli, something I’d looked forward to since roasted red peppers are a personal favorite. But even with that caveat, the T-Bird was one of the better sandwiches I’ve eaten in East Nashville. And the fresh greens and couscous made for a light, delectable side dish.

The portions at Silly Goose are quite large for the price, something which might need to change down the line but is great news in the meantime for East Nashville food lovers. As a customer, the only real downside to the large portions was that we were too full to sample the house-made ice creams on the menu, which change regularly. We’ll be looking forward to trying those on our next visit . Given how light the hit was to our wallet, how good the service was (even with Dining Out For Life filling the place to capacity) and how much we enjoyed all the flavors we experienced, that visit will probably come sooner rather than later.

The Silly Goose, located at 1888 Eastland Avenue, is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11am-9pm.

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Nashville CARES has been in continuous operation since 1985. According to the organization, “Our mission is to promote and participate in a comprehensive and compassionate response to HIV and AIDS through education, advocacy, and supportive services. The doors of CARES are open to anyone affected by HIV and AIDS in need of comfort.”

A slew of East Nashville restaurants are participating in this year’s Dining Out For Life, including some of our favorites. Here’s a look at the participating venues on the east side, the meals during which they’ll be participating in the event, and the percentage of your bill they’ll donate in parentheses:

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

Marche Artisan Foods (50%)

Lunch & Dinner

Allium (50%)

Nuvo Burrito (50%)

Silly Goose (50%)

Far East Nashville (30%)

Dinner Only

Batter’d & Fried/Wave Sushi Bar (30%)

Eastland Cafe (30%)

Mad Donna’s (30%)

Margot Cafe and Bar (50%)

Watanabe Sushi & Asian Cuisine (30%)

All diners at participating venues will also have a chance to win two round-trip domestic airline tickets courtesy of Southwest Airlines. Just fill out a donation envelope  at your restaurant of choice and return the envelope to the Volunteer Host to be entered into the drawing. Donations aren’t required to win, but they’re appreciated and will go a long way toward helping people in your community.

This event is bound to see big crowds turn out, so reservations may be in order depending on the restaurant you choose. Click on the name of the restaurant above for contact information. For a list of all the participating eateries in the entire city, click on Dining Out For Life.

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The champion's trophy

There were several hundred Nashvillians in attendance and a few dozen local eateries and food shops handing out samples of their recipes and products. If you think you can’t fill your belly with samples, you should be sure to attend Iron Fork next year and give your theory some field-testing. We never expected to be so happily heavy with food from such tiny little portions, but when the flavors on offer are so tasty it’s hard not to get seconds and thirds.

It seemed like nearly everybody had some sort of pork dish at their station – not unexpected in Nashville, and certainly not unwelcome since we’re known fans of the pig. The best was from Whole Foods, who offered up a simple dish of tender, slow-roasted pork shoulder with greens. But also more-than-satisfying was the southern egg roll from Two Twenty-Two Grill & Catering, the new in-house restaurant at the Country Music Hall of Fame, and a dish from Amerigo made up of pulled pork and pesto over a parmesan polenta.

Fantastic as most of the pork was, our palates were glad there was more on offer than just savory dishes centered around “the other white meat.” We sampled a fantastic bacon-wrapped chicken breast with pepper jack cheese from Mere Bulles, sno-cones from Fleur De Lis Flavors, and a tiramisu with candied pecans from Finezza that drove from our memories all the mediocre tiramisu we’d eaten in our lives. And The Cupcake Collection‘s sweet potato and red velvet cupcakes were a treat like no other on offer Wednesday night, with a not-too-sweet, creamy, grainless frosting that had us coming back for more.

Purple sweet potato madness!

And then there were the Stokes purple sweet potatoes that ended up serving as the secret ingredient for the competition portion of this year’s Iron Fork. Whole Foods showed off the versatility of this tuber, grown on old tobacco farming land in North Carolina, by turning it into four different products including a creamy sweet potato butter and a delicious cocktail sauce. And the five master chefs did incredible things with the Stokes purple, too – or so we’ve heard.

While the food-and-drink aspect of the event was very well organized, the competition portion was hard to follow. An old friend of ours works at Tayst so we knew who defending champion Jeremy Barlow was by sight, but otherwise we couldn’t identify the chefs from our vantage point. That made it difficult to develop any sort of rooting interest and turned us into disinterested onlookers rather than involved audience members. And while there were cameramen on the floor, just like Iron Chef or other televised cooking competitions, what they showed us on the high-def flat screens rarely matched up with the banter from Carrington Fox and the other Scene-sters on the mic up in the front of the room. Luckily, Jim Ridley has an Iron Fork recap post with the details so you can learn about the victory by Acorn‘s Chef Andy Hunter.

Team Tayst at work

We would’ve preferred to follow the competition with excitement, but the circumstances forced us to pay it little mind and focus on the food instead. But there were so many tastes, and so many friendly people offering them up, that the competition disappeared into the background and we were left to enjoy an evening of some of the best food Music City has to offer. Regardless of what you expect in the beginning, an end result like that is never a bad thing.

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For starters, you won’t find better service anywhere in East Nashville. While Rachel and I waited behind two other cars on our last visit, the owner brought a menu out to us so we could look it over before arriving at the window to place our order. Once we got there, he was exceedingly friendly and attentive to our requests and got every detail of the order right – more than can be said for a lot of fast-food-style establishments.

The menu at King Solomon’s Gyros is diverse. There’s the standard fare that you would expect from a gyro joint, along with a few favorites like the Philly Cheesesteak and Catfish Sandwich, and a number of different salad options. There’s also a full complement of appetizers from stuffed jalapenos to fried mushrooms and hot wings, making it a low-priced option for game-day snacking. On our visit we kept it simple, opting to go with a taste of the Mediterranean and leave the American favorites for another time.

At King Solomon's Gyros, you get all three: fresh, friendly and cheap

Rachel ordered the falafel plate ($5.99) and noted that the falafel cakes were perfectly cooked with a great soft crunch. They were a touch dry on our last visit, but a little cucumber sauce is the perfect antidote to that little problem. Served on a bed of aromatic yellow rice with saffron, the falafel was accompanied by warm and tasty pita wedges. Rachel described the side salad – lettuce, cucumbers, tomato, banana peppers, and feta cheese in a vinegar dressing – as “refreshing.” The tangy peppers and potent vinegar overpowered the other flavors in the salad to a degree, especially the delicate flavor of the feta, but all the ingredients tasted fresh.

I chose the gyro combo ($5.49), my second go-round in the last two weeks with this option. At just $1.50 more than the gyro alone to get an order of fries and a drink, it’s as good a bargain as you’ll find on this side of town. The meat was tender and flavorful, juicy but not greasy, and served on a fresh roll with cucumber sauce, tomatoes, lettuce and onion. The portion size was generous without being too much to handle, though you might end up with a few leftover fries if you didn’t grow up a member of the Clean Plate Club.

I finished my meal by splitting a small vanilla milkshake with Rachel. Made with local Purity ice cream, it was a bit on the sweeter side but still made for a nice treat on a hot day. Even with the milkshake and tax included, we both ate for under $15.

Even though it’s a drive-through business, it can take a few minutes to get your food at King Solomon’s Gyros because they have a small staff and make everything to order. But with long business hours (Sun-Thurs 10am-10pm, Fri-Sat 10am-11pm), fresh food, friendly service and the affordability of a diverse menu all working in the restaurant’s favor, the wait is a small price to pay for one of the East side’s best cheap meals.

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